Can someone who knows Android explain this to me because it sounds too awful to be true. Since recent Android only makes it easy to request location access (and likewise camera, mic) "while using the app", there's a hidden permission not in perms UI called "foreground service"...
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And, at least as I understand it, it allows the application to launch a "foreground service" to pretend it's still in the foreground after the user closes it, so it can retain location/camera/mic permission explicitly contrary to user consent.
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A foreground service is inherently tied to a notification which must be at least low priority by default which shows it in the status bar and on the lockscreen. The user can choose to hide the notification. There will still be a location indicator and history regardless.
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OK, that's at least something of a help. Why is this not documented in anything you can Google for?!
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It's documented here:
developer.android.com/guide/componen
You start a foreground service with startForegroundService instead of startService and then need to create a notification and pass it to startForeground or it doesn't get treated as an actual foreground service and then gets killed.
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The allow while in use approach for microphone/camera/location is less strict than the only while focused requirement for reading the requirement. It was done that way so that apps could still provide a user-facing feature via a visible notification without background access.
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I think it should still explicitly say "allow while focused or showing activity notification" or something like that to make it clear to the user what they're supposedly consenting to.
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